TV Highlights

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Producer, Director

About This Person

From All Movie Guide: A director with a sure hand for underdog sports dramas, Emmy-winning producer/director David Anspaugh cut his teeth on 16 mm sports films during his years at the University of Indiana. Following his stint there, the Decatur, IN, native studied film at U.S.C.'s School of Film and Television. He worked as a high school teacher in Colorado in the years that followed, but the lure of a career behind the camera proved too strong to resist, and the aspiring director soon made a change. Anspaugh worked as an associate producer on such made-for-TV movies as Vampire (1979) and Fighting Back (1980), which led to work on the acclaimed television police drama Hill Street Blues. Before he left the series in 1985, Anspaugh had both taken the director's chair and won two Emmys for his work as a producer. Growing more confident behind the camera, he directed episodes of St. Elsewhere and Miami Vice, and made his feature debut with the touching sports drama Hoosiers. The memorable tale of an Indiana high school basketball team that becomes an unlikely contender for the state championship, the film put Anspaugh on the map as a director and earned star Dennis Hopper both Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor.